Talk:Garen/@comment-24086627-20131024014647/@comment-8506165-20131109132627
Harass and poke him if you're up against him in lane. You really need to keep his passive off - he'll be able to stay in lane for a long time if you just let it work when you're not trading with him. Most Garens opt to tank up early. If you're a tanky type yourself, you probably want to do that too so you can match him, seeing as you're not terribly likely to get a kill on him in lane between his passive and his high tankiness from W's passive and active. Sunfire Cape is an excellent choice if you're against him in toplane as a physical damager because he then can't just build armor to mitigate all your damage. Mercs can be a good choice if you're dependent on your abilities and his silence is problematic. If you're dead set on a purely offensive build though, build armor/magic pen and ideally lifesteal or spellvamp as appropriate to help keep up with his sustain in lane. And just try and farm up as much as you can. Try not to let him push you to your turret - Garen's a very good diver and if there are minions at your turret you may be forced to choose between harassing him to get his passive down, or getting last-hits you'd have missed by doing that and letting him regen. Out of lane, kiting is Garen's Achilles Heel. He needs to get close to do any damage whatsoever. Yes, he can remove slows with his Q and gets tenacity while W is up, but his speed boost on Q isn't that great and if he's wasting W to avoid being kited, he's lost a fair chunk of tankiness in the actual fight, so try and bait the Q before using any slowing abilities. Try and keep minions between you and him because he slows himself if he tries to spin through them. Depending on how Garen's built, though, he may not be all that much of a threat to you unless you're on low health, so keep that in mind - I've seen full tank Garens been ignored during teamfights just because they're hitting like a ballerina. The ult, however, does not scale with anything (well, technically magic pen, but no Garen will ever build that), so it's dangerous no matter what if you're on low health. Avoid Garen then unless you know for sure his ult is off cooldown. A Hexdrinker can save you from being executed with it though, as the shield will kick in before the damage is dealt. I sometimes pick one up as my MR choice if Garen's on the enemy team just for that reason. Good purchases against Garen include... well, the anti-tank items, so %pen items, and the anti health stacking items. Blade of the Ruined King deserves special mention here as you can use the active after he pops Q to steal some of the speed boost he gets from it and slow him at the same time, so it fits with the whole "kite Garen to death" theme. Oh, and never facecheck that brush.